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>11.1. What's an account?</A
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> When a computer is used by many people it is usually
	necessary to differentiate between the users, for example, so that
	their private files can be kept private.  This is important even
	if the computer can only be used by a single person at a time,
	as with most microcomputers.
	
		<A
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>[1]</A
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	Thus, each user is given a unique username, and that name is
	used to log in.  </P
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> There's more to a user than just a name, however. An
	<I
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>account</I
> is all the files, resources,
	and information belonging to one user. The term hints at banks,
	and in a commercial system each account usually has some money
	attached to it, and that money vanishes at different speeds
	depending on how much the user stresses the system. For example,
	disk space might have a price per megabyte and day, and processing
	time might have a price per second.  </P
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>[1]</A
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>It might be quite embarrassing if my
		sister could read my love letters.</P
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